Pandemonium
by L. D. Nicolescu
Summary: Kushina, where was Kushina? I had to find her before the Iwa nin found her. There was no question on that.


**Pandemonium**

* * *

_"There is no before. There is only now and what comes next."_

_Laura Oliver, Pandemonium._

* * *

Dark clouds danced past my vision. The wind blew strongly, making strands of hair cover my eyes momentarily. My vision was woozy, making my steps all that much painful to take. Almost as if, each step was a small stab to my temple, which was on the verge of explosion.

I clutched my head, stopping dead in my tracks to recover my balance. The spasms wouldn't stop. They just kept coming, one after the other. Unmerciful. My fall, a few moments before, hadn't been as light as I had originally thought. I should have avoided that last attack, but Kushina had been behind me and avoiding it would have meant she'd take it. Memory rushed back into me, making the head ache stronger.

Kushina. Where was she? She had been just behind me last I remembered, before that blast had hit me and forced me out cold. That had been a few moments ago. I was certain. Almost.

My head ache forced me onto my knees. I clutched my head once more, hoping the tender touch would ease up the pain away. Yet, when I retrieved it, the spasms were as strong as ever. My hand was bloody. Or so I told myself when I saw the brown liquid running down my hands.

'I have to find Kushina.' I scolded myself, knowing that I had taken bigger and badder hits before. Yet, my body wouldn't listen to what my brain would command it to do. Every time I tried to get up from my kneeling position, another more powerful spasm would seize my brain and legs would end up shaking. 'Get up, damn you.' I cursed, hoping that thought would ease the pain.

While I tried to recover a little bit of my strength, I recounted that last few minutes before I was knocked out cold.

We were in the middle of a open field, near the border of Iwagakure and Kuzagakure. We'd been sent by the Hokage himself for reinforcements over the failing troops that were trying to keep the Iwa's army at bay. We'd arrived yesterday, only to had been forced into battle almost immediately. Said battle had taken most of last night and partof today's morning, only to end when the few Iwa soldiers left surrendered. They had been taken away for questioning and I had been forced to drag a still battle hungry Kushina away from the border. Even if she was stronger than me right now, she would have no chance against a full fledge army of Iwagakure all by herself.

Then, while we were regrouping and planing an infiltration mission, we'd been attacked by a group of double the soldiers the last one had, forcing our troops to retreat into secret hideouts. Unfortunately, for us, Uchiha Satoru, Mikoto's elder brother and Kushina's best friend and team mate had been attacked by twenty of the enemy, leaving him fatally wounded. Kushina and I had disposed of the enemy fairly quickly after that, only thanks to Satoru's blinding technique, yet the medical team wasn't quick enough and the Uchiha had died.

In all my years of knowing Kushina, I knew that she could be impulsive and irrational when emotion took over, yet I had never in all my years with her seen her so empty. It had been almost as if the life had left her instead of her friend. Now, I'm not saying that she just stood there and took it. The few after Kushina discovered Satoru was fatally wounded were one of the longest of my life. She shouted desperately for help, yelling at me to do something about the wound and the turned to her friend in desperation and consolation muttering empty promises.

"You are going to be ok," she smiled in between tears. "You are going to be fine. The medical ninja are on their way and they are going to heal you and you are going to be just fine. You are going to be just fine."

"Minato," the Uchiha had murmured from his dying position. My gaze flew from my crush to the dying man. "Save her."

I stayed silent. That was a real understatement. We were surrounded by enemy forces. Our position could be easily tracked, specially with Kushina shouting the way she was, but I couldn't force myself to knock her cold and take us to a more suitable location. And that was when the medics got there.

Satoru didn't have any chance left. Even if by some miracle he could have swallowed the five blood pills it would have been necessary to get his blood back to normal levels, the wound near his heart was something that required immediate surgery.

'Save him.' Kushina had demanded from the over worked ninjas. They couldn't. He'd far too much blood. The fact that he was even conscious was a miracle.

"Even if we did have the elements to preform surgery on him right here right now, there'd bee no guarantee that-"

"I don't care!" she had shouted, lingering over Satoru's body. "Take my blood if you need. Take my chakra too, just save him!"

"Kushina-"

Blood spilled over our clothes. His head had been cut off. Enemies! My senses forced my mind to focus on the task ahead. Kill all the surrounding enemies and drag Kushina away to a safer location. But that was too much to ask.

Kushina fought with all her might that moment. She had never been a big fan of killing her enemy, always preferring to wound into submission or closing their chakra points with a seal, yet that night her hands were stained red.

As more and more bodies fell, I thought of stopping her and taking her away. Surely after this madness was over her consciousness would take over and destroy her. Her guilt over lost life would force her into madness, yet I couldn't force myself to interrupt her. Something had snapped in her. Something that had forced this blood thirsty madman into surface. Something that wasn't Kushina.

'Save her' Satoru had asked me. Save her. Up until this moment I didn't know what he'd meant.

"Kushina!" I materialized in front of her before she could deliver the final blow on the last living soldier. "Stop."

Her gaze, turned from the cowering teenager to me. Her eyes were the same, but there was something in there. Something animal. Something that was asking for blood. "Get out of my way," she growled in a voice that wasn't hers. It was too cold.

"Stop." I repeated, gripping her arm tighter. "This won't bring Uchiha back."

She didn't reply. She just kept looking at me with those eyes. There was no light there. No innocence. No soul. Only blood thirst. But the the mention of her old friend had snapped something inside of her. Something that was fighting the darkness that had possessed her. Yet, in-spite of her best efforts to take over, the darkness won.

I dodged her attack. Something that wouldn't have happened if she had meant to kill me. She had restrained herself somehow in the last second. But that blood thirst was back and it was aimed at the Iwa soldier. The thing about that moment was that Kushina was just a few seconds too late. The Iwa's soldiers were taught to win or die and take the enemy with them. It was a sense of honor with them. Life didn't matter. And no matter how young this one seemed, that mantra had been grilled into him since early age, forcing him to make a fatal decision.

The explosive kunai blew a few seconds after I'd pushed Kushina behind me. Even in her most desperate moments, I still couldn't let her die. It was a matter of live or give my life over Kushina's so she could continue living. Even if she was oblivious to that fact.

As the explosion covered my vision, I watched as that usual light in her eyes returned. She was back. Or at least had more self of control over herself that she had before. 'I'm glad.' I thought, before darkness swallowed me hole.

And here I was. Alive and useless. I punched the dirt below me. How useful could I be if I couldn't even stand the weight of my own body? More importantly, where was I? And were was the rest of my team?

A horrible scream made me shot my head straight up. Exploding my already explosive head and blurring my gaze. What was there? Were there more enemy? Was Kushina ok? I had to snap out of this state and get moving if I wanted to-

A mix between a roar and something even more terrifying knocked my off my knees. Wind blew all around my with such incredible force I had to protect my eyes. A horrible sense of fear welled up in me. What was this presence? This sinister feeling in the air? It made breathing all that much harder. It was almost as if the air had been thicken in those last three seconds forcing me to clutch my chest.

'Calm down.' I told myself. 'Whatever summon it is, you can escape unharmed, you just need to find a way to-'

But I couldn't even finish my thought. Another sweep of wind helped me stand. I shook my head slightly, and looked around. Nothing. Somehow the forest and the plains that had previously been part of a very tricky battle were gone, leaving in their place a trail of bodies both our own and the enemies.

"What the hell happened here?" I asked out loud, grasping my left arm. It was broken. 'What kind of bomb had that been?' I thought, taking a few very painful steps forward. There was just no way - my vision was filled with red strands.

"Kushina!" I shouted, ecstatic to know that she was alive and apparently well. "Kushina are you-" I stopped dead in my tracks.

A few feet in front of me and with her back to me was Kushina. Her red hair was flowing freely in the never resting wind, uncovering her naked back. She made no attempt to move and I wondered if she had heard my at all, yet I couldn't make myself approach her for some reason. 'No' my gut seemed to say. 'Don't move.' I tried to take a few steps forward to see better, but the wound in my abdomen was making that hard to do. I stumbled onto my knees once more but never took my gaze away from the red headed girl.

That wasn't Kushina. I knew it. Even if her body was the same as hers and her hair hadn't change there was just something about her that forced me to accept that that was not the girl I'd saved over ten years ago.

I opened my mouth to shout her name once more. Maybe she would recognize her own name and come back, but my voice died in my head when I discovered what she was looking at so intently. Bodies. Hundreds of bodies laid in front of her. Incomplete bodies of both sizes. I finally understood. She had killed them all. Both enemies and allies alike. She was the one responsible for this massacre.

She raised her hand above her head and the air around her suddenly started moving in a circular motion, imitating a small yet very powerful tornado. Something in her hand started materializing. Something small dark and white. Almost like a ball. A black ball, that rotated in place. Once it was fully shaped, Kushina raised her other hand, summoning as much of her chakra as she could into that hand too and fused it with the black ball in her other hand. It grew bigger and bigger until it reached the size of a small elephant in a fetal position. 'How interesting,' I thought, when coherence failed to explain what was happening. But before I could even muster another question she threw it forcing the air surrounding us to leave with the black ball. It wasn't long before it detonated and everything turned white and soundless. I was blinded for better part of the next few seconds.

When everything semi cleared, Kushina materialized in front of me, her eyes grasping mine without escape. For some reason, the blast had made me color blind, because surely, surely those animal like eyes could never been Kushina's. That previous darkness enveloped me once more.


End file.
